Finance minister Arun Jaitley presents Budget for fiscal 2018-19

New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley presented the budget that gave priority to agriculture, agriculture related industry and infrastructure development in rural India. The budget is trying to give impetus to the manufacturing sector and employment generation, said the Finance minister. At the same time the announcement of providing security of health insurance of 5 lakhs to about 10 crore families has become the highlight of the budget.

In his speech before the budget Arun Jaitley expressed confidence that the Indian economy is coming back on track and the exports will rise by about 15% in the next financial year. The target for the budget is to keep the fiscal deficit below 3.3%, said Jaitley. The finance minister announced the security of 5 lakhs in the form of health insurance for about 10 crore poor families under the ‘Ayushman Bharat’. This is considered as the biggest announcement of this budget. The finance minister also announced building of at least one Hospital in three Loksabha constituencies.

The Finance minister underlined the importance of the infrastructure development with the allocation of 5.97 lakh crores. The Finance minister pointed out that this will accelerate the economic growth. There is substantial allocation of 14 lakh crores for the rural sector, which includes necessary things like employment generation, home creation and electrification. There is an allocation of 1 lakh crore for the education sector. Making an important announcement for the industry, Finance minister brought the tax down to 25% giving 5% discount, for the companies with a turnover of less than 250 crores. The finance minister announced the EPF of 12% will be paid by the government to all the new employees’ accounts across industries. A provision of 7140 crores has been announced for the textile industry.

There is a provision of 3700 crores to compensate the losses suffered by the small-scale industry because of demonetisation. Under the Ujjwala scheme 8 crore houses will be receiving gas connections. 16173 crores have been announced for 8 projects for river cleaning under the Namami Gange program.